Tuesday 27 February 2007

Today we will be expanding on the third of the "three crucial traditions" (Socratic commitment to questioning, Jewish prophetic commitment to justice, tragicomic commitment to hope) - all of which I see in Jesus. From Cornel West in "Democracy Matters."

In the face of cynical and disillusioned acquiescence to the status quo, we must draw on the tragicomic. Tragicomic hope is a profound attitude toward life reflected in the work of artistic geniuses as divers as Lucian in the Roman empire, Cervantes in the Spanish empire, and Chekhov in the Russian empire. Within the American empire it has been most powerfully expressed in the black invention of the blues in the face of white supremacist powers. ..."The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from its a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism." This powerful blues sensibility...expresses righteous indignation with a smile and deep inner pain without bitterness or revenge.
...the essence of the blues: to stare painful truths in the face and persevere without cynicism or pessimism.

We all know that it is so easy to feel completely out of place and undone by the power of the status quo that is able to simply march on and ignore the needs of those who are not at the controls of such power. But within this tragicomic hope, more is to be seen. Life is to be seen. The reality of what is around us is seen and experience and yet we are invited to see more - to see beyond to what is not yet in place and what may not be in place in our lifetime...but we sing on! I wonder if in the time of the writing of the book of Revelation - when the "empires" of the world were oppressing the early church - if the church was already learning to sing the blues. I remember watching a video of Wyatt T. Walker. He spoke about the difference between the blues and gospel music. For him, gospel music stuck to the story of the Christ and how that story was a bedrock of hope in the most hopeless of situations. If I remember correctly, the blues were on a parallel but separate branches of the same tree that would be considered the secular gospel. In both branches there was resistance and there was a word to carry the people into and through the day. We already know that gospel music was used to carry folk through the oppression of empire with the promise of a land of freedom and life - even when evidence was not great. Tragicomic hope.

Connection: Sing on! "When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down. When I was sinking down, sinking down. When I was sinking down, beneath God's righteous frown, Christ laid aside his crown for my soul, for my soul..." In the face of what comes - even the worst of the day...sing on. Personally, I think we see some of the tragicomic in "The Daily Show."

Lord, be our rock when we are not sure what will keep us afloat through this day. Before we turn sour and begin to hate the world and everyone around us, help us to sing and to laugh within the vision of your promises. Amen.